Animal Communication

Joseph Poulshock, PhD

It’s not going to be Planet of the Apes any time soon. But animal communicators are still amazing.

Animals are smarter than you think.

Main ! Point Animals can communicate. They can use symbols or calls to communicate with each other. When working with humans, they can learn to communicate with humans and use human language in surprising ways.

Key Words/Outline

• Birds and Duality

• Vervet Monkeys

• Gray Parrots

• Koko the Gorilla

• Lucy the Chimp

• Kanzi

• Rico and Chaser

Design Features Animals?• Duality--二重性

• Arbitrariness--恣意性

• Displacement --転位; Stimulus Freedom --刺激反応自由

• Structure Dependence --構造依存性

• Creativity--創造性

• Recursion --帰納 (反復)

Once upon a time, a lady went for a walk, and she met a parrot. The parrot said:

N’kisi: Gray Parrot

• N'Kisi is a gray parrot.

• Aimee Morgana is N’kisi’s human.

• Morgana claims N'Kisi knows 950 words.

Alex

• New York times, reporting on the death of Alex.

• He learned more than 100 English words.

Dr. Irene Pepperberg & Griffin Parrots

• Talking birds show the design feature of duality.

• They can learn many words and phrases.

• Do they produce words and phrases based on structural rules, or are they memorizing chunks?

Can Monkeys Talk?

The Vervet Monkey• Vervet have a special alarm call for each

enemy.

• A “rraup” for eagles/hawks.

• ワシ

• A “chutter” for snakes.

• ヘビ

• A “chirp” for lions/leopards.

• ライオン／ヒョウ

The Vervet Monkey

• Specific calls for each predator.

• Hawk! Run to the center of the tree.

• Snake! Stand up and look.

• Leopard! Go to the end of the branches.

Vervet Monkeys

• They use alarm calls to escape predators. Each call shows a different kind of danger. Each call causes monkeys to respond in a unique way.

• Are these calls “arbitrary symbols?”

Chimps and Gorillas

Koko

• Koko is a gorilla. He was taught sign. He learned *645 signs, with a working vocab of 375.

• EYE HAT (mask);

• WHITE TIGER (zebra).

• SORRY BITE SCRATCH (Why?) BECAUSE MAD (Why mad?) DON’T KNOW.

Lucy and Roger Fouts

• Fouts: WHAT THAT?

• Lucy: WHAT THAT?

• Fouts: YOU KNOW. WHAT THAT?

• Lucy: DIRTY DIRTY.

• Fouts: WHOSE DIRTY DIRTY?

• Lucy: SUE.

Lucy and Roger Fouts

• Fouts: IT NOT SUE. WHOSE THAT?

• Lucy: ROGER!

• Fouts: NO! NOT MINE. WHOSE?

• Lucy: LUCY DIRTY DIRTY. SORRY LUCY.

Lucy

• What 2 things are significant about this conversation?

• Lucy lied.

• Lucy apologized.

Kanzi

• Kanzi is a Bonobo Chimp. He learned English as a baby.

• On tests, Kanzi gets between 57% and 74% correct answers.

• His answers are above chance.

Kanzi

• Why is the researcher wearing the mask?

• What is special about Kanzi’s responses?

• Would you like to try this?

Primates

• Primates are the most impressive of the non-human linguists.

• They cannot make words from meaningless sounds (no duality).

• But they use symbols in an arbitrary (but limited) way.

• They express somme creativity, structure, and displacement.

Apes may be the smartest animals with language, but dogs are

our friends.

And border collies are the smartest

RICO

• Border Collie

• Knows 200+ Words

• Learns new words.

• He remembers.

Chaser

• Four experiments over 3 years with Chaser.

• In the first experiment,

• Chaser learned the NAMES of 1022 objects or toys.

Chaser

• In the second experiment, Chaser

• UNDERSTOOD THE DIFFERENCE between names and commands.

• She could understand that “bring” is an action, and “cat” is a name.

Chaser

• In the third experiment,

• Chaser showed the ability to learn labels for CATEGORIES.

• She knew that “ball” referred to one set of objects.

• “Toy” referred to another set of objects.

Chaser

• In the fourth experiment,

• Chaser GUESSED or INFERRED the meaning of a new word.

• For example, there are four toys in a room.

• Chaser knows “cat,” “dog,” and “mouse,” but not “pig.”

• If the researchers said, “Bring the pig,” Chaser could do it.

Dogs

• Chaser shows us that dogs are especially adapted to live with humans.

Conclusions

• Some animals show minimal language design features.

• No animal shows all the features.

• Which design feature do none of the animals show?

• Recursion. Mr. Ed the Talking and Singing Horse

Conclusions

• Compared to human language, animal communication is simple.

• Animals are clearly not innately programmed to learn language.

• Dogs don’t walk on two legs.

• Gorilla’s don’t speak words.

Concluding Points

• Complex language is unique to humans.

• Uniqueness of human language supports the idea of an innate grammar acquiring ability.

• Universal Grammar

Main ! Point Animals can communicate. They can use symbols or calls to communicate with each other. When working with humans, they can learn to communicate with humans and use human language in surprising ways.